Eric Bauman, the man who runs one of the most hated, and seemingly one of the most profitable, web sites on the Internet, ebaumsworld, has disturbed my piece of mind over the past two days. He has questioned my professional skills and, more appallingly, lobbed threats of public humiliation and even criminal fraud charges in my direction since Monday, all the while I’ve been running a major (for me) event, The New Video Summit, and catching up on the latest IP voice and video developments at VON 07.
An excerpt of one email sent by Bauman (not to me, but more on that later) will you give you a sense of the threats Bauman has been making. Bauman wrote:
This is clearly a scam. I will not only make this public but I will also file a criminal complaint with visa and dispute this charge as fraud. I will also make a public post on my site explaining the situation and spreading the word to my (1.2 million visitors daily) as to what your company is doing.
I’ve never met him, never talked to him and was only vaguely aware of his controversial business prior to this week. I have nothing to do with ebaumsworld and have only tangentially written about this top video-sharing site. So, how did Bauman end up causing me so much heartache? It’s a long story.
In my real life I run a consulting and publishing business called Emerging Media Dynamics, Inc. (EMDI hosted the New Video Summit). In one form or another, I’ve always been in the consulting and publishing business and have spent my entire professional career conducting research, performing analyses and producing quantitative estimates of just about every media and communications business that has existed.
Whether that research was conducted for a sole employer (during my years as head of research for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, for example), or for dozens of business customers, I can’t recall a single complaint regarding the quality or relevance or value of my analysis or work. Certainly, of the thousands of research reports I’ve sold over the years, I can’t recall a single request for a refund.
But Monday morning, while in San Jose running my event, I got an urgent voice mail from a third-party research vendor, a respected outfit that sells research reports and analyses to companies worldwide. Someone who purchased my report from this vendor wanted his money back.
Most reports sold by this vendor come from well-known analyst firms and are typically very expensive, running into the thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, per pop. For this reason, the vendor has a no-refund policy. Otherwise, frugal firms looking to save a buck would purchase a report, copy it and then demand a refund.
My report, the one in question, Overview of Internet-Based Video Services, A to Z, is priced at a relatively modest $899. Despite the clearly displayed no-refund policy, one customer was demanding his money back.
Because of my schedule, I was unable to deal with this unusual situation and planned to postpone dealing with it until VON ended, although I admit it bugged me throughout the day. Whether out of indifference or true satisfaction with the reports I release, no one has ever complained and my curiosity was piqued. To my surprise, I got another urgent voice mail later in the day asking that I call to deal with this matter. Where, I thought, was the fire?
After a series of emails with the research vendor, the situation became clearer: Eric Bauman of ebaumsworld bought the report and Eric Bauman was voiciferously demanding a refund. An excerpt from his first email:
I recently purchased this report expecting to see useful information and instead found nothing more than generalizations. The report doesn’t shed light on anything and is simply not worth the outrageous amount of money you are charging. It is quite apparent that what you are doing is a scam. I demand a full and prompt refund. If not I will do everything in my power to bring this matter publicly. I expect a reply in the next 24-48 hours. Thank you for your time.
Bauman was threatening to “go public” (indeed, he would do “everything in his power” to make this matter public) if he didn’t get an immediate refund. No wonder the vendor was panicked.
But what, exactly, would Bauman go public with? He had the opportunity to read the table of contents of the report and study the abstract of the report via the vendor’s portal. He knew about the no-refund policy.
I asked the vendor to query Bauman further about what, precisely, he found wanting. Here’s an excerpt from Bauman’s response.*
The first 10 pages are just giving the definition of each subject. Anyone interested in this report and willing to pay $1,500 [not sure where this dollar amount came from] would already know the definition and would expect more in depth “research.”
The last 40 pages is simply a directory of a collection of sites, including mine (ebaumsworld.com). There is no value of this information since it is all public WHOIS domain information.
There is no specific market research of any site in the report. The only mention of any site is in the actual directory.
After these and other complaints, Bauman lobbed yet another set of threats, the ones highlighted at the beginning of this post — he would “file a criminal complaint with visa” (as if a credit card company has the authority to bring criminal charges against anyone) and spread the word of the vendor’s “fraud” to his 1.2 million visitors unless he got his money back immediately.
At this point I took a closer look at Bauman and discovered he’s one of the most hated men on the Internet. ebaumsworld is widely accused of stealing the video creations of others, going so far as to splice off the original creators’ watermarks before posting videos on its own site. Here’s one excerpt from an Alexa review of ebaumsworld:
Eric Bauman has been caught lying on multiple occasions, such as claiming the creator of the famous “Badger” cartoon gave him permission to host it on his site and even work with him, even though this contradicts his own quotes saying that he never gave permission to Eric Bauman to do anything. And I really don’t have to give an example of theft, but I will anyway. The humor site Something Awful had a photoshop phriday event where people parodied various movie posters. These pics found it’s way to eBaum’s World, had their watermark cropped off, and then replaced with the infamous eBaum’s World watermark.
There’s even a web site devoted to people who hate ebaumsworld’s tactics called ebaumsworldsucks.com.
Despite the enmity he engenders, Bauman has apparently become rich off his highly-trafficked site. According to a Wired profile of Bauman (a generally negative piece that is nonetheless posted on ebaumsworld), ebaumsworld generates revenue of $10 million per year and the 26-year old Bauman drives a black Porsche Carrera.
So, you’d think that someone riding this high wouldn’t have to resort to scary and laughable threats of criminal fraud charges and public smears to get his $899 (or $1,500) back. He doesn’t scare me and he shouldn’t scare the research vendor. Bullies like this are the biggest cowards of them all.
It doesn’t really matter anyway. I don’t want his money. He can keep it.
*Bauman, is, of course, off-base on every point. The directory was compiled over two months through painstaking research and all descriptions and categorizations were originally written by me. Specific websites are mentioned throughout the report, as well as in the directory. Bauman had every right to not find the “definitions” useful, but the main purpose of the report was to develop a categorization scheme aimed at helping people come to grips with the jumbled morass of Internet video sites out there. The definitions he refers to are, of course, explanations for how we derived the categories.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:06 PM | Print | Comments (2)
(San Jose, CA) Apple’s launch of TV and movie sales on its iTunes stores marked a turning point in the Internet video business, fomenting a rush of new online video ventures and signaling to Wall Street that web-based video will be a big business.
For Disney-ABC Television Group, iTunes’ video launch “helped to legitimize” the distribution of online video, Albert Cheng, VP of Digital Media for the company said here today at VON 07. Of course the close ties between Disney and Apple (closer now that Disney has purchased Steve Jobs’ Pixar), made ABC’s jump into online video sales easier.
But, there’s no denying that the traditional media provider has jumped into the online business in a big way since inaugurating the sale of videos at the Apple store. The issue now is “how do we take video and rally around a community of fans around our content,” Cheng said.
Despite its enthusiasm for the online video business, ABC is still playing the role of traditional media gatekeeper when it comes to user-generated content. “We will be filtering this stuff, monitoring it,” Cheng said in reference to an online version of “America’s Funniest Videos” that ABC will mount. “Some things may or may not get on depending on what’s appropriate. We are basically setting parameters around it so that advertisers feel comfortable.”
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:00 PM | Print | Comments (1)(San Jose, CA) BitTorrent has shaken up the Internet world with its powerful P2P platform, which earned a negative rep as video content pirates leveraged the software’s ability to move massive files efficiently around the web. But, BitTorrent actually tops everybody else when it comes to the authorized distribution of Hollywood films, according to co-founder and CEO Bram Cohen.
During his keynote talk at The New Video Summit, which preceded VON 07 here, (disclosure: NVS was organized by my company), Cohen said “BitTorrent.com has ten times as much stuff as iTunes today. BitTorrent has been talking to Hollywood for a long time.”
DRM, however, is a problem dogging all online video distributors, according to Cohen. One issue is with DRM leader Microsoft’s technology, which doesn’t work well Cohen said. “We are using Windows DRM because it is the only solution that has been vetted widely, but we are not happy with how it affects playback from a technology point of viewit sometimes makes playback not work.” (Thanks to Information Week’s Rick Merritt for this direct quote — as conference organizer, my note-taking during all the talks was spotty.)
More recommended reading on Cohen’s keynote: Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, who masterfully moderated one of the panels at The New Video Summit.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:38 PM | Print | Comments (0)(San Jose, CA) Internet video viewing choices are mushrooming, a sign that the web has emerged as a truly independent “television” medium. But, the massive number of Internet-based video choices is posing one key challenge to new content and infrastructure providers: giving viewers the navigation tools they need to sift through the millions of viewing options.
That was one theme running through the first New Video Summit, held on the eve of Pulvermedia’s Video-on-the-Net conference here on March 19. (Disclosure: my company, Emerging Media Dynamics, hosted the New Video Summit). Erich Hachenburg, CEO of MetaCafe, said during his opening keynote speech that one big obstacle this new industry needs to overcome is helping consumers find their way through the “clutter” of video choices. “If you don’t know the name [of the video you want to watch] you immediately find yourself in a morass of content.”
Dmitri Shapiro, CEO of Veoh, who said we’re at the dawn of a new medium called “Internet television,” reiterated this idea. “The big problem that is going to be resolved is how do you help people discover content,” he said.
Sarah Harden, SVP of Fox Networks Group, agreed. “What’s on the Internet is everything,” she said. “The problem is it’s still going to be about how to get consumers to find that content.”
Cisco SVP and GM Dan Scheinman also cited the overwhelming number of Internet video choices as a barrier to continued progress in the Internet video market. “Today the problem is that there is so much content out there. We need to live in a world where content finds you,” he said.
(Stay tuned for more on The New Video Summit and Video-on-the-Net.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 2:37 AM | Print | Comments (0)On the first full day of Jeff Pulver’s second Video-on-the-Internet conference, held in San Jose, CA, Pulver’s online video service Network2 will petition the FCC asking that the Commission keep Internet video free of the kinds of content regulations that currently apply to broadcasting and cable services. In the filing, slated for submission on March 20, Network2 will ask the commission to declare that Internet video, specifically the service provided by Network2, is not subject to these kinds of regulations and that the Commission, moreover, does not intend to impose new regulations on Internet Video.
The preemptive strike is designed to head off the idea that content-oriented regulations should be applied to the diverse and booming Internet video sector. Although the prospect that the U.S. might start imposing content rules on Internet video services is (arguably) a distant one, the idea is gaining ground in Europe.
The European Commission has proposed a new directive, to be considered for final passage in May, which subjects to regulation anything that could be classified as “television service” regardless of platform. Network2 argues that the European directive, if passed, would impose extensive regulation on Internet video services, carrying with it the possibility of a variety of content restrictions, advertising quotas and sponsorship limits.
Canada, on the other hand, is going out of its way to insulate Internet video from any regulations. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has already issued an order exempting Internet video from regulation.
Network2 argues that the U.S. should follow suit because “even the threat of regulation can chill innovation and entrepreneurship, divert previous resources away from further growth and development of Internet Video, and send money and innovation abroad.”
Unlike the regulations imposed on cable and broadcast networks, which are premised on the idea that government licenses foster scarcity, Internet video is boundless and disaggregated from infrastructure, thus undermining the typical rationale for most content regulations, according to the petition.
To the contrary, the rise of Internet video services seems to be fostering the introduction of even more Internet video services, resulting in a dynamic marketplace where abundance is fueling even greater abundance. Quoting Hamlet (and you have to love an FCC petition that cites Shakespeare), Network2 states:
Unlike broadcast spectrum and cable franchises, Internet Video is demand limited, and demand is growing exponentially with supply ‘as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on.’
Beyond the regulatory rationales, a First Amendment right to free speech is further at risk if the Commission doesn’t come out with a hands-off policy toward video-on-the-Internet.
Websites and other Internet-based services that focus on publishing and distribution of video content should be entitled to the same First Amendment deference that applies to publishers of text.
Further, keeping Internet video free of regulation is crucial as a matter of sound economic policy, Network2 says.
The Internet is the only form of electronic media distribution that operates seamlessly across vast geographic and political borders. Because Internet Video production tools and playback software travel as easily as the content, even regional technical standards are irrelevant. Regulation that does not thwart innovation altogether may well cause it - and its economic benefits - to be exported to the most accommodating country.
In all likelihood, this petition will gather dust at the FCC as the regulatory agency moves ahead on at least two other proceedings aimed at establishing new policies on Internet video. But, it is a first move by any party that attempts to draw an Internet-based video regulatory line beyond which governmental authorities should not cross.
Pulver is filing this petition on the same day that his company, pulvermedia, will formally announce a new coalition, the Video-on-the-Net Alliance. The Alliance is aimed at creating a community of companies and individuals that will advocate and work toward regulation-free Internet-based video.
Update: The final petition has filed at the Commission is here on Jeff Pulver’s blog.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 1:39 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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